Wordless Wednesday: The Alexander Scooch!

Happy First Day of Spring!

Doing some spring cleaning and playing around here.  

Daddy and his mini-me

My little mini-me and his robot drawings

We're thinking about having a yard sale.  Anyone have any tips to make it successful?

And maybe we should sell some of our old appliances for scrap metal.  

I wonder how much we could get?

Then maybe we'll finally get our house on the market.

Baby steps :)

Notes from The Half

Pre Race:

Oh man, after a night spent tossing and turning due to nerves, I was not feeling confident in even finishing this race.  I am so so so competitive, and if I wasn't going to beat my time from two years ago (1:56) it seemed like there was no reason to do it.  Phil kept reminding me that we were just running to finish, not to win anything.  

OK, we can finish, I can handle that.

I cooked a yummy Belated St. Patrick's Day post race meal (steak and Guinness pie) and we got dressed about five different times because we couldn't figure out what to wear for the weather.  It was sunny and high 50's.  We decided on the simple shorts and tee-shirt route.  We decided well.

Our friends and co-workers came over to drive to the race with us, and my awesome parents came to watch the kids.  After some sun screening and number pinning and nipple taping (ahem), we were ready to go!

 Jen and Matt

Two of the smartest and nicest people I know :)

 After driving around for a while, we found a good parking spot and took some pre-race pics.

The Girls:

 OK, I'm 5'6" (and a half) - so you can imagine how tall Jen is!

 The Boys:

This was Matt's first race, he was such a trooper to train it in wicked fast time in order to run with us.

The Girl and Boy:

We walked down to the starting place and decided to use the potty.  Well, everyone had decided to use the potty, so we snuck into the chapel and said hello to Jesus, and used the friars' bathroom.  I figured that they serve the poor and we were poorly prepared, so it was kosher ;)

Jen and Matt lined up with the 10 minute milers and Phil and I decided to run with the 9 minute milers.  We took off right on time with the other 3200 runners.  About 2 miles in my hips started to hurt (thank you 5 babies!) and we were running a little too fast (8:30ish minute miles).  

We ran by Team Hoyt:

And I thought, hips, you are healthy enough to run, get over yourselves.  Seriously, how could you not be inspired by this father and son combo?

Mile 3 started the first big hill, and we slowed down a bit.  Around mile 5, my friend Ann-Marie was there cheering us on, which helped a lot!  Then we were near the park, and I was looking for my kids, thinking they might be there to cheer.  I was disappointed not to see them, then Phil reminded me that there was no way that my parents could have driven them all there.  We forgot to leave the van keys.  Whoops!  Onward we charged.

Miles 7ish through 11ish were all by the water, and you could smell the ocean and see the blue water, it was so nice.  The ocean breeze slowed us down a little, but I honestly couldn't have gone much faster anyway.  I was definitely holding Phil back a little, but he wanted us to stay together.  Whatta guy :)  

We talked a little, didn't listen to any music, just watched the spectators (who were an amazing support) and kept on keeping on.  We would say thank you to all of the kind people cheering for us, high five the little kids, and read the funny signs people had made.  So much to be thankful for!  Except for the spectators who were smoking as they watched us run by.  Hello, not cool!  We signed up for a race not lung cancer!

Despite all the support, I could feel my pace slowing little by little and instead of 9:20 minute miles we were running just over ten minute miles.  But I was strangely ok with just finishing and told Phil not to let me know what mile it was or how fast/slow we were going.  Actually it wasn't strange at all considering how I prayed for peace and patience the first half.  God is good!

At mile 12 we heard a loud "Hi Phil and Colleen!" from another friend and co-worker, Nicole, and then ran by Fr. Rich who had just gotten out of Mass and was in front of his church.  We yelled hello to Fr. Rich and he shouted back his hello as well as "I'm not going to run with you this time!"  Those two cheerleaders got us over the last huge hill and towards that finish line. 

As soon as we turned the corner at the end, we sprinted for the finish and crossed with a time of 2:06.  Ten minutes slower than two years ago, but I'm just glad it's done!  We grabbed some orange slices and water and our medals, and waited for Jen and Matt to finish.  They raced to the end with a time of 2:11.  Yup, we nailed it.

 Post Race:

And now I am super sore and all lactic-acidy (that's a medical term, right?) so I am going to go drink some more water and lay in bed.  

And chant my new motto: 

Never again

:)

7 Quick Takes Friday: Volume 31

1) I took Maggie and Eamon to see a play this past weekend with my sister and her kids.  It was Pinkalicious, based on this book:
 

I had never read the book, but the littles already knew the story, and were excited to see it.

(Eamon with his cousin and Maggie in background)

John-Paul and Andrew got grumpy about not being able to go - though I would have bet money thinking they wouldn't want to.  They just didn't want to be left out, but if they could have seen all the little girls dressed to the nines in pink frufruness, they would have felt sooooo out of place. 

All in all, it was cute, but I don't like how it portrayed "green food" as gross for 99% of the show, and then the 1% of the show (at the very end) showed she could choke it down.

2) Phil and I had a work meeting this week and even though we were in the same room, we couldn't see or talk to each other, so we flexted.  You know, flexting...flirty texting.  Do you and your spouse flext?  Does your face ever blush while reading them?
No?
Me neither.

3) We had a family birthday party for John-Paul and his cousin Katie.  It was at the Y and lots of fun.  We had make-your-own-sundaes in lieu of cake for two gluten-free family members:

4) We are officially done with our half-marathon training.  The race is this Sunday.
It makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it.

5) When we did our first half-marathon two years ago, I was in much better shape to run 13.1 miles.  I was younger, my 4th child was 2 years old, I had done tons and tons of speed and hill workouts, and I weighed ten pounds less.  Now?  Well I'm 33, I've had another baby who's only 7 months old, and I've done virtually no hills or speed work.  I did get in all of my long training runs though.  Our goal is just to run the whole thing without stopping and not focus on time (me) and not get dehydrated (Phil).  It should be 60 degrees and sunny so he is going to run with his Camelbak and hope that makes a big difference over the half two years ago.

6) We have one baby boy St. Patrick's Day outfit.  It is size 9 months.  In other words, it's not Xander sized:

 Look at how short it is!

At the ripe old age of 7 months, he is wearing size 18 month shirts and size 12 month pants.

Here's Eamon wearing the outfit 5 years ago (5 months old):

Loads of people tell me Alexander looks like Eamon.  Here's Alexander again:

 What do you think?

7) Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Have a wonderful Irish weekend everybody :)

Luck of the Irish GIVEAWAY

It's *almost* St. Patrick's Day, so I will host a giveaway!

(Heehee...that rhymed.  I'm a poet and I don't know it.)

St. Patty's Day 1984

I'm the five year old Irish lassie on the left, and my three year old sister, Maura, is on the right.

Mom, do you see how short her skirt is?  Do you??

Anyway, back to the giveaway.  We Irish people are great hostesses, dontcha know?  Terrible cooks, but we can still put out a spread! 

So for one lucky leprachaun, the following prizes await

(like the gold at the end of the rainbow):

1)

Lovely Liz from Sugarplum Creations has taken her photography and turned it into beautiful cards that you can win:

So elegant!  Like a cup of tea with a scone :)

2)

Just a few weeks ago, I ordered one of Allison's Crinkle Square toys for our wee Alexander to play with, and to nobody's surprise he loved it:

(We went with the monster theme.  It seemed fitting.)

You can win a crinkle square toy and even get to choose your own flannel design.

Go see what else she has in her Etsy shop, she is quite the crafter!

3)

Super talented Melissa is giving away one of her $12 magnetic doll sets like this one:

Tis' St. Patrick himself!

Visit her shop to see which one you would choose!  These are cooler than Finn McCool!

4)

The hilarious Cari is giving away a print from her shop.  This one is my favorite:

When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.

~Edna O'Brien (Irish writer)

So to enter this giveaway, all you have to do is leave a separate comment for any or all of the following:

1) If you're not already, become a follower of my blog and leave me a comment saying that you are.

2) Visit Allison's shop and tell me which flannel design you would like.

3) Visit Cari's shop and tell me which print you would pick.

4) Visit Melissa's shop and tell me which doll set you like best.

5) Visit Liz's blog and become a follower.

6) Post about my giveaway on your blog or facebook, and come back and tell me you did.

That gives you up to SIX entries! 

The winner will be chosen using a random number generator on March 29th.

Good luck!